‘Social workers should develop journalistic perspective to highlight issues of concern’
Senior Correspondent
NewsBits.in
PACHMARHI/BHOPAL: Social workers have plenty of ground level information and knowledge about issues, but they fail to communicate it to the media.
They work for social development and try to reach benefits of development to the last person in society by forging close relation with common people.
If they can highlight their activities and issues through the media, their work can become more effective. These points came out in a three-day media writing workshop organized by NGO Vikas Samvad Samiti with the help of UNICEF at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh from March 18 to 20.
In all, 35 participants from ten districts of Madhya Pradesh state took part in this media writing workshop.
UNICEF, MP, communication specialist Anil Gulati and senior journalists Aman Namra, Sravani Sarkar and Baba Mayaram were the resource persons.
Anil Gulati spoke about social media and its growing use for communication and resolving of issues. He said that it was now necessary to use this platform positively used to take the issues and suggestions to administration.
He explained the techniques and reach of the social media platform in details.
Aman Namra said that the people linked to the ground have a treasure of information and news, but there is a need to develop for the social worker to develop vision like a journalist.
He said that there are several alternative media platforms in the country that are continuously doing serious/excellent work and can be useful for highlighting social issues.
Sravani Sarkar said that by sharpening our perspective, we can understand and present any event or information with a broader perspective. It is also important that whenever we take any issue to the media, we should have a balanced outlook.
Baba Mayaram said that for media writing it is necessary to establish a strong dialogue with society. He expressed concern over decreasing media space to issues of common people and said it is therefore important for social workers to get into dialogue with media.
The technical and practical aspects of media writing were explained in detail during the workshop. Workshop was facilitated by Rakesh Kumar Malviya of Vikas Samvad.
